Villa Adriana Art Space
Villa Adriana, Tivoli, Italy
An Adaptive Re-Use of emperor Hadrian’s Peschiera and Winter Palace to create a space for contemporary art.
STATEMENT OF INTENT. Through delicate and strategic interventions to the site this project makes possible a new compatible use; an Art Space for both old and new works of art. The new materials are rendered in an identifiable golden treatment to make apparent what is new and what was existing.
CONTEXT. Located roughly at the center of the Villas grounds the Peschiera and Cryptoporticus are adjacent to Emperor Hadrian’s Winter Palace. This three storied building was a series of heated rooms for Emperor Hadrian to reside in. Originally the Peschiera was a fish pond surrounded by a colonnade composed of forty columns, designed for bathing and strolling on hot days. Beneath, the Cryptoporticus was originally decorated with frescoes and was meant for comfortable strolling at all times: it was cool in summer and warm in winter.
AREA OF INTERVENTION. The project’s area is two-fold; above ground on the Peschiera and its adjacent rooms, and underground within the Cryptoporticus.
REFERENCE. Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed powdered gold. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage. This philosophy of respect to the life of Hadrian’s Villa as a ruin is central to the project.The three main Kintsugi metods are crack, joint and piece (pictured above).
